The newly elected Parliamentarians of Pakistan People’s Party(PPP) met  for the first time after it became the single largest party in the recent elections and discussed the name of Fahim, the 68-year-old Vice-President of Benazir Bhutto’s party and a few other probables.

No final decision has been taken yet, party sources said, adding that the meeting lasting two hours was convened to discuss Thursday’s decision taken by  former rivals PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N’s Nawaz Sharif to form a “National Consensus Government.”

The names of PPP’s Punjab Province President and a formal Federal minister Shah Mehmood Quereshi, senior leader Yousuf Reza Gillani and firebrand lawyer Aitaz Ahsan were also doing the rounds for the top post.

The PML-N has already made it clear that the Prime minister will be from the PPP. “We are waiting for them to nominate a suitable member of the National Assembly,” PML-N Joint Secretary Siddique-ul-Farooq said. Neither Zardari nor Sharif are immediately not eligible to be premier because they are not MPs.

The ruling party—PML(Q)— which backed President Pervez Musharraf meanwhile said it doubted that the PPP-led new alliance would be stable calling it a “marriage of convenience.”

IMRAN’S PLEA 

Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan on Friday asked the PPP and PML-N, which are set to form a coalition government in Pakistan, not to work with President Pervez Musharraf or compromise on the issue of reinstating the judges deposed during last year’s emergency.

He also favoured Aitzaz Ahsan to be the Prime Ministerial candidate of the PPP. But Ahsan, addressing a joint press conference with Khan, said the next premier should be from Sindh province.

“The most important issue today is the reinstatement of the judges (which is part of the struggle) against the forces of status quo to create a democratic Pakistan,” Khan, who heads Tehrik-e Insaf party, said.